Am I Crazy? Dual Boot 7 Pro & 8.1 or 10?

Thanks for the replies!
Being greener than an alfalfa sprout, I have no knowledge or experience with virtualization! This begs the question: If 7 PRO is "virtually" installed, will it have full functionality including use of command prompt, BIOS/CMOS manipulation upon startup, etc, etc? I fully expect to BREAK my confuser repeatedly in my learning process! This is not a bad thing, as the best way to learn is by making mistakes, figuring out what caused them and then fixing them!

Please understand that even though I'm in school for this stuff, the instructors are a bit less than fully knowledgeable and I have to take what they say with a grain of salt and do my own research. The old adage "Those who know, "DO" and those who don't teach!" certainly applies here. Most of the training seems to be geared towards manning a "HELP" desk/phone or wandering into Suzy's cubicle to figure out why her unit won't boot and having to avoid telling her that it's because she's a moron! I want to learn enough to get past these types of positions!

All Help Appreciated,
Gene

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Just remember first postulate of Help Desk: "Restart computer and see if it helps", something like doctor's "Take an Aspirin and call me in the morning" !!! Patients like in that example you should educate first, "No maam,, mouse is not same as sowing machine pedal and CD/DVD drive is not a cup holder. No, it will not copy that document if you hold it in front of the screen".
Anyway, if you have and are using "Legacy" BIOS, it's not affected by any OS. On the other hand, UEFI bios may pose problems and with it, only installation on separate disk is practical option.

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Not the case with the OP. He has already upgraded the Windows 8.1 on this computer once to Windows 10 - so a Windows 10 clean install will activate itself by skipping the product key. Then the OP purchased the Windows 7 to install.

You can't dual boot your Windows 7 Pro AND use that to upgrade to Windows 10 Pro without violating the EULA.

Now - if you install Windows 8.1 Home as the second OS instead of Windows 10. Then you can upgrade the Windows 7 installed in the first step to Windows 10 Pro and not violate the EULA.

Thank You Sir,
I guess this leaves me with the quandary of whether to upgrade the home version of 8.1 to 10 home or eventually, when school is done, upgrade the 7 Pro to 10 Pro. I guess it really doesn't matter, as in the long run, when all is said and done, I will only likely need one OS on the machine. I don't plan to use this for anything but training until school is finished and will not have a lot of storage space used up.

It seems that now the best course of action would be to, as suggested:

A) Wipe everything and do a clean install of 7 ProB) Partition as requiredC) Do a clean install of 8.1 Home and upgrade it to 10 Home, as I have no desire or need for 8.1. I have no installation disk for 10.

D) When school is done, decide if 7 is essential to keep and if not, wipe out the 10 Home and upgrade the 7 Pro to 10 Pro and call it a day!

Does This Sound Like A Good plan?
Gene

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Thank You Sir,
I guess this leaves me with the quandary of whether to upgrade the home version of 8.1 to 10 home or eventually, when school is done, upgrade the 7 Pro to 10 Pro. I guess it really doesn't matter, as in the long run, when all is said and done, I will only likely need one OS on the machine. I don't plan to use this for anything but training until school is finished and will not have a lot of storage space used up.

It seems that now the best course of action would be to, as suggested:

A) Wipe everything and do a clean install of 7 ProB) Partition as requiredC) Do a clean install of 8.1 Home and upgrade it to 10 Home, as I have no desire or need for 8.1. I have no installation disk for 10.

D) When school is done, decide if 7 is essential to keep and if not, wipe out the 10 Home and upgrade the 7 Pro to 10 Pro and call it a day!

Does This Sound Like A Good plan?
Gene

Just remember one thing, W10 free upgrade offer is good only till July 29th next year. Make sure your W10 is activated on that machine and do not revert to the Windows you upgraded from.

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Just remember one thing, W10 free upgrade offer is good only till July 29th next year. Make sure your W10 is activated on that machine and do not revert to the Windows you upgraded from.

Why can't he revert back? Reverting back does not remove the activation entitlement from the MS activation servers.

Originally Posted by windoz

Thank You Sir,
I guess this leaves me with the quandary of whether to upgrade the home version of 8.1 to 10 home or eventually, when school is done, upgrade the 7 Pro to 10 Pro. I guess it really doesn't matter, as in the long run, when all is said and done, I will only likely need one OS on the machine. I don't plan to use this for anything but training until school is finished and will not have a lot of storage space used up.

It seems that now the best course of action would be to, as suggested:

A) Wipe everything and do a clean install of 7 ProB) Partition as requiredC) Do a clean install of 8.1 Home and upgrade it to 10 Home, as I have no desire or need for 8.1. I have no installation disk for 10.

D) When school is done, decide if 7 is essential to keep and if not, wipe out the 10 Home and upgrade the 7 Pro to 10 Pro and call it a day!

Does This Sound Like A Good plan?
Gene

I would modify the plan a little bit:

1. Wipe everything, clean install Windows 7 Pro.
2. Create partition and install Windows 8.1 Home.
3. When all that is solid and setup, make a system image to a second (either installed or external) hard drive using Macrium Reflect Free.
4. Upgrade Windows 7 Pro to Windows 10 Pro - make sure it activates. This pushes a Windows 10 Pro activation entitlement to the MS activation servers. Whether or not you actually use it - it will be there if you choose to.
5. If you want to keep Windows 7 Pro for now, then revert back to Windows 7 - or restore that partition from your Macrium Reflect Free image.
6. If desired, upgrade the Windows 8.1 Home to Windows 10 home.

When that is all said and done, you can legally run 1 of three combinations:
Windows 7 Pro + Windows 8.1 Home
Windows 7 Pro + Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 Pro + Windows 8.1 Home

You should also have the ability to clean install any of the 4 operating systems:
Windows 7 Pro
Windows 8.1 Home
Windows 10 Home
Windows 10 Pro

Last edited by NavyLCDR; 14 Oct 2015 at 14:39.

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